So I bought plane tickets to San Diego today and am super excited!
I will be in the city from June 29 to July 9th and am looking for the must-see things in San Diego. Any great beaches, bars, restaurants, etc? Oh, and since I'll be there for the 4th, whats the best place to celebrate the holidays? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Oh, I'm you're typical mid-20s male thats never been further west than Ohio!

So I bought plane tickets to San Diego today and am super excited!
I will be in the city from June 29 to July 9th and am looking for the must-see things in San Diego. Any great beaches, bars, restaurants, etc? Oh, and since I'll be there for the 4th, whats the best place to celebrate the holidays? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Oh, I'm you're typical mid-20s male thats never been further west than Ohio!

Coast of La Jolla is really scenic, but nightlife there is quite poor. Gaslamp district in downtown is great almost every night. It is full of people; lots of bars, nightclubs and restaurants.

Wild Animal Park is cool as well, but Sea World is a definite must see. Then check out "Gliderport" in Torrey Pines: 2800 Torrey Pines Scenic Dr, La Jolla, CA

If you are into museums, Balboa Park has a bunch of them. Still, Los Angeles has much better museums and it is not that far away. If you are going that way, check out Laguna Beach, Venice Beach, Hollywood Blvd to see the famous pink stars on the sidewalks, then try to hike to Hollywood sign up in the hills, go to Rodeo Dr. to try your luck for an occasional star sighting (and to stare at lots of expensive cars) and get to Santa Monica Promenade at night, quite crowded on Fri and Sat. nights with quite a few street performers.

So I bought plane tickets to San Diego today and am super excited!
I will be in the city from June 29 to July 9th and am looking for the must-see things in San Diego. Any great beaches, bars, restaurants, etc? Oh, and since I'll be there for the 4th, whats the best place to celebrate the holidays? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Oh, I'm you're typical mid-20s male thats never been further west than Ohio!

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I live here. There's Sea World, Wild Animal Park, Zoo, Gaslamp, Downtown, (I can tell you about some good coffee shops around the area as well, if you smoke you can smoke inside of Cafe Bassaam on 4th and Market). If you like hookah, there's some good hookah bars around.

LeStats on Adams Ave. is a nice coffee shop that's open 24 hours. They have a side venue that has open mic nights and live music throughout the weekend. The coffee shop I always go to is Hot Java Cafe, I help set up the open mic on Thursday and they have live music on Friday and Saturday, with a 2nd open mic on Sunday. Music is from 7-10 PM Thursday - Sunday.

If you like burgers, people seem to love In-n-Out. Best burger you'll have for a fast food joint out in this area (I know there's others, but for fast food, this is pretty fresh).

For bars, I'm not much of a bar hopper since I don't have much cash, but the Old Sod next to Le Stats is a pretty decently priced bar.

As far as beaches go, I kind of hate water, but La Jolla is a very nice walk around, as well as Del Mar. For the 4th of July, I highly recommend going to the Oceanside Pier by downtown oceanside. Treat yourself to some dinner at Ruby's restaurant at the end of the pier, then watch the fireworks. There's several large barges out in the water that launched a spectacular firework show last year. I watched from the shoreline because parking was terrible, it was very crowded.

If you need someone to show you around, or if you want a coffee shop buddy, send me a message and I'll give you my phone number if you want, we can talk some more when you get out here. I'm a 21 year old student, work during the week, but I definitely know San Diego, as I've lived here my whole life... heh... At the very least, you should meet up and hang out at Hot Java if you need a friend, as I'm there a LOT helping out with the music.

I was also wondering if theres a good place to get some more information on things to do or happenings in San Diego on the web. I tried to do a google search but I dont really anything too helpful. Thanks guys!

Staff Member

Yep...Coronado is a great place to visit. Tijuana is so-so...drive right on through and head down to Rosarito.

Black's Beach in La Jolla. Much of it is a nude beach, but part of it is not. It's a hike down a bluff, so it's usually not crowded. Hang gliders taking off from the top off the bluff, beautiful sand, etc.

I was thinking about making a trip down to Mexico, but I was planning on just sticking to the daylight hours. Am I just being paranoid? How concerned should I be about safety in Mexico? Just as concerned as traveling elsewhere or more so?

When I think Mexico (and esp Tijuana), I think of scenes from Traffic.

My wife and I went to San Diego recently, and stayed in La Jolla ("La Hoya"), it was excellent. Also, we ate some great food!! We went to Taka sushi in the Gaslamp district, and it was excellent.

You have to go to Hotel Del Coronado (pic attached), and Coronado Island, it is unbelieveable. Also, we had a nice dinner at the Marine Room. You'll have to eat breakfast at least one morning at The Mission in La Jolla. It was probably one of the best breakfasts I have ever had (besides Mama's in San Francisco)

Also, we really enjoyed the Zoo and spent a day in Del Mar (I would go to the beach in Del Mar, much more beautiful)

We did not go to Mexico. We figured we really wanted to see the San Diego area, which was the purpose of our trip.

I can't say much about the nightlife, but Gaslamp looked pretty good, lots of people around.

Edit: I noticed you are going to be there a while, you may get bored after about 4 days. Since this is your first time to California, please make the drive to L.A. It is worth it, just to see Rodeo, Beverly Hills, etc. You could schedule one night there and spend the night. You could try to get tickets to The Tonight Show or something. Take the "senic route" on the way back and you can visit Laguna Beach (beautiful) and Venice Beach.

I'm gonna have to agree. I've never been to California but make the drive to L.A. L.A. from San Diego cannot be more than 2 hours, it's highly worth it.

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Ha! That is the plan... Although time-wise I hear it depends on what time of day you decide to do it.

RacerX said:

I'll be out there tomorrow...

Things I'll do while out there:
Go to a Padre game (either Friday afternoon or Sunday afternoon)
Spend time in Coronado Saturday afternoon/evening (20th high school reunion, we're having it at the del... not surprising as we are from Coronado High School)
Maybe go to the beach Sunday morning
Spend time with my family out there the rest of the time

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I actually think my friend and I are going to head out to the game on Sunday afternoon. Might as well since she lives less than a dozen blocks from the stadium.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone out there so far. Please keep them rolling!

It you want a bar club scene, we have the Gaslamp Quarter downtown and Pacific Beach (more for college aged and more layed back than Down town).

If you want sights there are plenty. Going out to Point Loma would give you great views of downtown San Diego while also seeing Cabrillo National Monument and maybe checking out some tide pools. As mentioned above Rosecrans National Cemetry is next to the monument so you can visit some of our fallen soldiers. Also Harbor Island (across the street from the airport)and Coronado Island will give you great views of downtown.

If you want to go out to Coronado I'd suggest taking a ferry across the bay instead of taking the bridge.

Also downtown we have the USS Midway aircraft carrier musuem, might be worth checking out.

An interesting look out to give you great views of San Diego at large and La Jolla would be to go to Mount Soledad in La Jolla.

Since you are going to be in town during the 4th, Fireworks are normally launched at local High Schools, Sea World, and in San Diego Bay. Watching them down at the bay is impressive since they reflect off the water.

The beaches are going to be packed this weekend no matter where you go since it is the weekend of the 4th though my personal favorites are La Jolla Shores and Torrey Pines State Beach.

We've been in the middle of a heat wave the past couple of days so when making your choices on what attractions to go to keep this in mind. With that said go to the San Diego Zoo instead of the San Diego Wild Animal Park if you want to see animals because there will be about a 20F difference in temperature.

If you are a big Top Gun fan you may want to drive up I15 near Miramar MCAS which use to be Miramar NAS or Fightertown USA which was the center piece of the movie.

Out of the local attractions Balboa park is a must. not only does it have the San Diego Zoo it also has many musuems and such. It is great just to walk around and take in the scenery.

Seaworld is fun for the Shamu shows and Dolphin shows though it can get a little pricey. Legoland is another option but remember its geared for little kids where as Seaworld is more all ages.

If you want to see wildlife La Jolla would be a great place to see it. In downtown La Jolla there is a little Cove called 'the children's pool' and a colony of harbor seals has taken residence there. Its fun to go see them.

You're going to get hungry and San Diego has great Mexican food and seafood. A lot of the hole in the taco shops are good though if this is your vacation you probably don't want to do that. I suggest going to Casa de Pico in Grossmont Center (Take I-8 east from downtown). Awesome food and I'd recommend it to anyone. Old Town no longer has the Mexican food that they use too though Casa Guadalajara is awesome too.

Good seafood can be found downtown or out on Coronado. My personal 'fast' seafood favorite is Anthony's on Harbor Drive by the Old tall ship Star of India (worth seeing).

The county fair is still going on until the 4th up at the Del Mar race track. Might be fun to do though maybe not while on vacation.

If you feel like you really want to go to Mexico I suggest going past Tijuana to Puerto Nuevo (about an hour south once you cross) for Lobster. Though if you have a rental car you may not be able to get it across the border. So it might be better to get a taxi. If you do drive down there besides the possible 3 hour wait to get across customs/border patrol might give you a hard time for not having you Passport.

If you have any more questions about San Diego or need ideas for things to do while here, let me know.

Oh yeah if you want to go to LA it will probably be a 2 1/2-3 hour drive. Anahiem is closer and has Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and Mideval Times.

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